Ed McDonalds Trek Superfly 9.8

Ed McDonald has built up a reputation for long adventures, long races, and long, but interesting, blog posts http://edridesbikes.wordpress.com/. He’s also recently rebuilt his race bike – a Trek Superfly, in Target Trek MTB livery. The frame is the same as on the Superfly 9.8 tested in Issue 141, but most of the build is a little different.

Name: Ed McDonald

Lives: Canberra

Races: Cross Country, Lap based Enduro, 24hr solo, Marathons

Frame: The Superfly 9.8 frame is light and long. Less than 900g, it uses construction methods that allow alloy to virtually be removed from the frame, save for threads for the two water bottle mounts. Trek have designed their own BB standard (BB95) that is essentially like a headset, with both bearings pressing into the frame.

Cranks: Target Trek are a Shimano sponsored team, and Ed runs the Shimano XTR Trail cranks, with 26/38 gearing. He also uses the Shimano XTR pedals, which have a super low stack height and a narrower Q-Factor

Forks: Fox Float RLC forks handle suspension duties. Ed doesn’t run a remote, but what is of note is that his forks have been serviced and don’t need to be referred to as ‘old faithful’ anymore.

GPS: Most riders will run a GPS unit of some kind, even if they don’t upload everything to Strava. A racer must have their secrets. It looks like a lot of data would be secret to Ed, until he got home to upload it anyway.

Drivetrain: As with the cranks and pedals, it’s full XTR. Ed chooses to run the XTR trail rear mech as well, for chain security

Wheels: The lovely Bontrager XXX TLR Disc wheels grace Ed’s bike on race days. Light, tubeless and with fast engagement, their a winning choice.

Spares: No one said carrying a spare tube had to be pretty. Electrical tape can be relied on for quite a lot, and in this case, we doubt this tube is going anywhere in a hurry.

The last word: The Superfly in Target-Trek colours and team spec is a light and efficient race bike, just about exactly the same that Trek Factory Racing use in the World Cup. Ed just manages to make his work for 100 mile events, marathons, XC endure racing and all sorts of mountain bike adventures.